FREE AT LAST!

Hola darlings!  How are you on this wonderful weekend day?  I'm GREAT!  You see, my last day at work was Friday, January 30th.  I am now officially RETIRED, woo woo!

I cannot tell you how HAPPY I am, but I sure don't look it in this picture that my work buddy Barb snapped of me Friday morning -- the other ones she took must have turned out even worse (ouch!) since she chose this one as the best of the lot (?):

Hello!  That's me. Maybe I need to
save for a face lift after all...

Hmmm, I look tired, eyes are puffy, that sweater is NOT flattering (honestly, I'm not as heavy as I look in this pic, but I really need to work on that next 10 pounds, yikes), and I definitely need to invest in a good support bra, OY!  But despite the pic, I was VERY HAPPY -- I just don't take good pics (well, that's what I keep telling myself - nah, you don't REALLY look that bad).

So, that's a glimpse of my former office -- as clean as it's ever been.  It was even cleaner by the end of the day, because I moved piles of work that must be tackled on Monday into the office of my successor, who had the day off (he's not moving into the office I'm vacating, which doesn't make sense because it holds all the files of my now former boss and he's going to be constantly walking back and forth between offices to access them.  Perhaps eventually common sense will prevail and he will - NAH.  He's a nob.)

Now officially retired, and I am GLAD because we are being zonked with blizzard-like conditions here. It's a true nor'easter blowing in over Lake Michigan from Canada. It started snowing last evening and it is going to snow all day today and into tomorrow.  In this area we may get between 6 to 9 inches, but with lake effect snow in play, it's anybody's guess, really.  We could get over a foot.  Here's what my backyard looked like about 10 this morning:

It's snowing hard -- you can actually see it falling in contrast against the red fencing, and you can see the snow blowing off the roof of my neighbor's garages!  Don't want to get a face-full of this stuff!  It's fine tiny flakes, gritty almost, and the wind is gusting upwards of 30 mph.  The temperatures are plunging downward and areas to the southeast of Milwaukee County are under full blizzard warnings until noon tomorrow! I have some tall drifts here and there and bare spots here and there and it's getting worse even as I sit and type this -- wow, just saw a white-out in my backyard!

About 9:15 this morning I opened up my front door to get a look at the street view and got the crap scared out of me - here was this big young guy standing on my front stoop about to pound on the storm door. Fortunately, he looked as taken aback as I did.  He called me ma'am.  Now I know I must look like a blowsy old broad.  Sigh.

Turns out he and a buddy run a business in the area and they were going around the neighborhood offering to snow blow out driveways and sidewalks.  They did my front porch, front walk and sidewalk for $15 (I passed on the driveway, not needing it to be fully cleared), and it looked good.  Forty-five minutes later those guys are way down the block now, getting plenty of work (good for them - very enterprising and SMART to be going around on such a day), and my sidewalk is already drifting over and looks like it was hardly touched!

This was cleared 45 minutes ago, believe it or not!  My front sidewalk, walk from the public sidewalk up to my porch.

I hope those guys come back tomorrow when the storm is finally over :)  Look at that mess -- there's deep snow in the streets, plows have been through but you wouldn't know it by looking at it.  Oh my, not even going to attempt to shovel my way out of here until this is ALL OVER!

As I'm sitting here typing, the winds are whipping up even more.  SO glad I won't be attempting the half mile walk to the bus stop tomorrow morning to get to work!  I won't ever have to do that walk again, against my will!  AAAAHHHHHHHHH, THIS IS FABULOUS!

The alarm part of my clock radio was turned OFF when I got home from my celebration with friends on Friday night.  Yesterday I got up around my same time (5:40 a.m.) without alarm -- I just woke up like I'm on a computer program or something, as I had to go for a blood draw and I like to get that done as early as possible in the day because it takes forever to go back and forth by bus. I left the house yesterday at 7:08 a.m. and was back home about 9:54 a.m., supplies in hand.  When I caught the 76th Street bus going south heading home, I jumped off at my Pick 'n Save and did my grocery shopping, along with about 500 other people!  Stocked up on supplies to sit out the storm -- wine being my number one priority, as I have plenty of food stashed already, and a new box of hazelnuts for my squirrels already in stock (I buy in bulk, 25 pounds at a time). That was it for me for the day.  Other than tossing lots of nuts out to the squirrels yesterday -- they were visiting more than usual, probably sensing as they do that a storm was coming and they would have to "bulk up" for the next few days until they can easily get out of their nests to navigate once again -- I did not do much of anything.  It was heavenly! Today I slept in -- I did not get up until 7:04 a.m.!

View to the southeast from my patio door.

So today's agenda is my usual reading of the Sunday newspaper (already had my one cup of coffee for the day and my morning cookies), taking down the tree and packing away the remaining decorations until next Christmas, and then catching up on visiting my favorite blogs to see what peeps have been up to.

Later on I'm going to make some kind of chicken breast dish.  I picked up a sweet onion and a green pepper yesterday at the Pick 'n Save and defrosted a chicken breast from my stash (you would be amazed at how much food my tall but skinny counter-depth euro-style fridge/freezer at the bottom holds - WAY more than the larger "standard" size with freezer on top I used to have at the former Maison Newton).  I have no idea what it's going to turn out to be yet, I'm just going to experiment and hope I don't poison myself.

Goodbye, 2014 Christmas:

I always take the tree down on Super Bowl Sunday.  It's sad this year because WE WERE SO FRICKING CLOSE, DAMN IT ALL!  At least Aaron Rodgers won his second Most Valuable Player award -- well deserved!  Playing on one leg and taking the team on his BACK (and one leg) ALL THE WAY TO THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP - writers in Hollywood can't even come up with real life stuff like this (which doesn't say much for their imaginations, does it???)  GREEN BAY PACKERS ARE THE GREATEST TEAM THAT EVER WAS OR EVER WILL BE.  I mean - first we had that traitor Farve whom I will hate until the day I die for what he did, going to play for the Vikings - but he was great until it went to his head - he won two MVP awards, and now Rodgers!  THE LEGEND OF GREEN BY LIVES ON.... (imagine echo sound in that voice of the dude who does the NFL Films voice-overs...)  Let us all fervently pray that Rodgers wins a THIRD MVP award.  Ha, Farve, take that, you filthy traitor.

Before I wrap this post up, squirrels were here at the crack of dawn, and they were waiting impatiently for me on the steps leading to the patio as I was "late" this morning.  There they were, pacing back and forth, leaving paw prints in the snow.  When I opened up the blinds they looked up (four of them) and motioned in squirrel sign language WELL, ABOUT TIME!

I immediately tossed out some hazelnuts but the squirrels couldn't find them in the snow.  So I pulled out the broom and while the squirrels watched from their perches on top of the fence and garage roof I swept off the steps and carefully tossed more nuts down.  They were gone in a flash.

It didn't take long for the blowing snow to begin covering up the nuts that I kept supplementing for the intrepid squirrels who managed to make the trip to my backyard:

The squirrels disappeared about 8:30 a.m.  Given the present conditions, I don't expect to see them until later tomorrow morning, after the worst of this is over.  Which means I'll have to get out and shovel the steps off and make a couple of paths for the squirrels to come from the fence lines and the arborvitae to the patio steps.  LOL!  I'm such a "mommy!"

Tick, Tick, Tick to RETIREMENT!

Hola darlings!

This is it - FIVE MORE WORKING DAYS TO R DAY!

It's coming true - early retirement, and I still can't believe it, but I don't want to pinch myself because if this is just a dream, I sure don't want to wake up.

I gave my "official" notice to Human Resources on January 5th and then spoke with the head of the Practice Group I am in, in early afternoon, giving him the news and the whys/wherefores.  From there, news spread like wildfire.  Until I gave "official notice" I had kept it very close to my vest, telling only one friend at the office whom I knew would keep her lips zipped.  She did.  And of course, my best buddy Ann, whom I've known since 1991.  So it was a BIG surprise, this news of my impending retirement, and something of a bomb to everyone at the firm.

Suffice to say that my bomb turned into a NEUTRON BOMB.  Wow - I never imagined so much drama, but there's been drama a-plenty, mostly surrounding who would be my successor.  It's been - interesting, since we learned, although it's never been officially announced, that evidently the firm's new "policy" is NO NEW HIRES.  Nope - those left behind will have to suck it up and take over the gargantuan work-load (and incumbent stress) I shouldered.  Well, good luck with that.



My last work day is January 30th.  I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me -- people I didn't even know knew who the heck I was -- wishing me well and congratulating me on my "early escape."  There have been lots of lunches with co-workers, a supper with special friends last Tuesday night (it was SO much fun!), and my last week will be very busy with social events and work.

Monday afternoon there will be a "goodbye"get-together with my co-workers over cake in one of our conference rooms. Thursday lunch with two of the attorneys I've worked with for years at the firm.  Friday night, FREEDOM DAY, dinner and drinks with two special friends at Kegel's, one of my favorite places to eat, drink and make merry.  I will turn in my card-keys and commuter-pass and cell phone I never learned how to use, and collect a check for my accumulated PTO and start paying a ridiculously expensive amount every month to COBRA my health and dental insurance.  I won't qualify for Medicare for 18 months.  But my investment advisor and I have both crunched the numbers (me, several times), and I have enough for a comfortable (not lavish) retirement.  Investment advisor advised me to travel, play chess, and laugh a lot.  I like his advice :)

We had a meeting a week ago Saturday and went over the numbers once again and I received lots of good news.  Mind you, I'm not sure I believe his projections 100%, but he does this day in and day out for his living, working with people of moderate means like moi, and he's an upright guy, so I take what he says more seriously than anything I might hear from the kinds of "advisors" and brokers I interact with on a daily basis.  JH is, first and foremost, NOT a salesman. He truly cares about his clients.

I've saved a lot over the years, diligently working at it.  It was a concept I absorbed and adopted as a credo way back in the early 1970's, when I started working full-time.  Dad had always told us that if we wanted something, we would have to do it for ourselves, that nobody was going to magically appear and hand anything to us on a platter.  We would have to work HARD for what we wanted.  My parents did not preach, they worked their butts off (Mom worked full-time outside the home as well as Dad to support our family of eight) and showed us how to go by example.  Mom took me to the local bank when I was 15 to open my very first savings and checking account. I received a "free" Miriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for opening a savings account of $150. (I still have that precious dictionary more than 45 years later). After that, I was solely in charge of the funds I earned at a part-time job after school and on weekends during school year, and worked full-time in an office (at $1.65 an hour) during the summer from the time I was 14. (Mom and Dad got tired of running my checks through their checking account!)  Of course, before that, there was baby-sitting and chore money saved up, a quarter at a time, turned over to the parents or put into a piggy bank. Every penny counted then - and now!  I still pick up found coins off the street - what can I say?  You know the old saying, A PENNY SAVED IS A PENNY EARNED.

Please do not under-estimate teaching your children and young loved ones the ins-and-outs of saving money from an early age on.  Hopefully it will stand them in good stead in future years.

Earlier this year, as things shook out, I ended up downsizing to a smaller and less expensive house (I called it my Retirement Home), when early retirement wasn't even on my event horizon!  Downsizing had always been my plan, it just happened earlier than I thought it would.  As it turned out, it was a fortuitous event. The disciplined saving habits of this child of Depression-Era parents has and will continue to pay off. Thank you, Mom and Dad!  I am very fortunate, and very grateful to be in this position.

Best of all, the anxiety/stress induced angina I've been suffering through for months is rapidly fading into nothingness.  I fully expect to be angina-free as of 5:00 p.m. on January 30, 2015.  WHOOP WHOOP!

What's the saying - one picture is worth a thousand words?  What is a music video worth, then?  I love DONE (Band Perry, above), because in a work context it expresses fully what I've experienced my past twelve plus years of working at the firm.  Time to say GOOD BYE-EYE, OOO OOOH MY-EYE, OOMPH.

I also came across this wonderful music video from the early days.  Does anyone remember the band YES?  I did not remember their name, but I remembered a phrase from the song that cropped up into my memory the past few days. I went hunting for it on You Tube last night.  Found it!  Outside of the wonderful movie "Joe Versus the Volcano" which contains galvanic scenes of worker bees drudging toward the monolithic concrete monster building in which they slave away day in and day out, the words of this song, but most of all, the imagery, fully speaks to what I am experiencing in these, my final days of WORKING ON SOMEONE ELSE'S TIME CLOCK.   I hope you enjoy it's message and meaning as much as I do: